Placing
The Lost Okoroshi under the “Nollywood” genre feels like an oversimplification (much like how critics compare anything slightly weird to David Lynch ). Don’t get me wrong – Nollywood films & filmmakers definitely crawled (and walked) so Abba Makama could run, but his latest kind of transcends that genre in my opinion. This is a movie that deals with everything from the cultural & spiritual importance of African art & folklore, to faith & spirituality. AND – if you’re lucky enough to see it in theaters – this might possibly be the most fun you’ll have at the movies all year. I absolutely stand by that. While
The Lost Okoroshi deals with the aforementioned elements like spirituality, African folklore and the preservation of culture, it’s also a very random & very funny movie which is right up my alley. Whether you’re in to classic late night adult swim programming or the underrated comedies of Robert Townsend – there’s something in this movie for everyone. In fact –
The Lost Okoroshi has a lot in common with the early films of Robert Townsend as it's about a regular man-turned-superhero who uses his powers to try and clean up his own community from Pimps & crime lords (pretty much the plot of Townsend’s
Meteor Man). Both movies mix comedy, campiness, social consciousness & drama in the same fashion…
In the film we follow “Raymond” – a security guard haunted by intense visions/borderline nightmares that eventually consume him and transform him in to the folk superhero; “The Lost Okoroshi”. Once transformed, he uses his mystical powers to save prostitutes, re-distribute wealth in to his community and put an end to corruption. While this sounds like a standard superhero origin story (and it kind of is),
The Lost Okoroshi sets itself apart from the Luke Cage’s & Black Panther’s because the Black pride and African culture explored in the movie isn’t just “surface” (no disrespect to the predominately Black Marvel superheroes but there’s only so much true “Blackness” the Marvel/Disney corporation will show).
The Lost Okoroshi has subconscious/unintentional visual homages to everything from
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre…
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| The Texas Chainsaw Massacre / The Lost Okoroshi |
To Ousmane Sembene’s Black Girl…
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| Black Girl / The Lost Okoroshi |
On a side note – someone should really do research on the influence that this final shot in
Black Girl has had on just about all of African cinema. Much like how certain specific images from Bergman’s
Persona or the floating characters in the films of Tarkovsky have had on typical “art house’ imagery, I honestly think the mask scene in
Black Girl has not only influenced most prominent African films, but certain specific African American films as well…
Between
The Lost Okoroshi and its predecessor
Green White Green, Abba Makama is the kind of filmmaker that I want to cross over to larger audiences, but at the same time I don’t want his style compromised or messed with from outside influences. He has a formula that works and would be a nice breath of fresh air injected in to a lot of today’s film scenes. Not to take anything away from Ryan Coogler &
Black Panther (I enjoyed
Black Panther very much) but if you’re looking for an alternative to big loud Marvel superhero action films –
The Lost Okoroshi just might fill that void. I don’t even think Makama should necessarily be given the biggest
budgets in the world like Coogler (he should be given all the
resources which is different than budget). Let him keep his formula but give him the push he deserves.
